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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22771972">Coruscant Vice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/babzilla/pseuds/babzilla'>babzilla</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Back-Alley Fortune Teller Obi-Wan AU [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassination plot, Back-Alley Fortune Teller Obi-Wan Kenobi, Canon Typical Violence, Case Fic, Chaotic Good Obi-Wan Kenobi, Commader Fox: Assigned Bastard At Birth, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Grudging friendship, Humor, I Blame Tumblr, Other, Tags will be updated, WIP, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:49:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,612</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22771972</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/babzilla/pseuds/babzilla</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As far as responding to threats against a Senator’s life went, things were progressing as normal. </p><p>Fox does not need some CoCo Town swindler co-opting his investigation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi &amp; CC-1010 | Fox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Back-Alley Fortune Teller Obi-Wan AU [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Coruscant Vice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Yesterday? I sent an ask to blackkat on tumblr after reading a line from chapter 16 of their fic “hunting toward heartstill”. This is the result.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As far as responding to threats against a Senator’s life went, things were progressing as normal. </p><p>They received a tip, they mobilised a squad, the fool Senator refused to be ‘intimidated by terrorists’, confident that his own security team could handle any threat without disrupting his day, and the hapless captain assigned to the case called in Commander Fox, as the resident hard-ass, to persuade the Senator to come into protective custody until such a time as the threat was neutralised.</p><p>The Senator, being Core World elite and particularly stubborn, put up a reasonable showing in trying to resist Fox’s recommendations and still insisted on attending his committee meetings. Fox countered by insisting on a squad of troopers escorting him or else locking down his office until they assessed the threat level of the situation.</p><p>They’re cutting it close to lunch hour when they finally head off, but Fox won out in the end on the condition of personally escorting the Senator to his next meeting.</p><p>So he’s quite satisfied with himself in resolving the issue before his designated break hour until they hit the mezzanine nearest the Senate’s entrance doors. </p><p>It’s already a security nightmare for moving a high profile target— and the Senator simply has to stop and greet his various associates and party members (perhaps to show just how much he will not be intimidated), and all the squad can do is politely hustle the man along before he lingers too long in an open space that could easily turn into a shooting gallery.</p><p>As would be typical for the current state of Fox’s life, that’s when things start to very quickly go wrong.</p><p>They’re almost in the clear, heading toward the elevators, when a man somehow manages to insinuate himself into the squad, cutting straight toward the Senator.</p><p>“Excuse me! I wonder— could I have a word?” The man calls in a high Coruscanti accent, not slowing down as he twisted around the startled security team’s attempts to grab him.</p><p>Pushing the Senator’s head down and keeping his pace, Fox turns to look at the human male efficiently evading the combined efforts of the Senator’s private security and the Coruscant Guard to detain him.</p><p>“I only need a moment! Please it’s very important-” the man insists, coming steadily closer.</p><p>Leaving the Senator to the captain with a nod, Fox turns back towards the commotion.</p><p>“Senator, please-!” He gets no further as Fox shoulders his way through with a burst of speed and grabs the man around the middle, using his momentum to disentangle the man from the squad and move him out of reach.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Fox demands, hauling the ginger-haired man away as his troops hustle the Senator off the mezzanine.</p><p>“What am<em> I </em> doing? What are <em> you </em> doing, Commander?” The man demands right back, wrenching himself out of Fox’s grip and righting his robes. “I’m trying to save that man’s life!”</p><p>Fox squints at the man from behind his visor, taking in the distinctive hair swept up in a topknot, held together with decorative metal-tipped sticks and strings of beads, and the sweeping robes in soft white, blue, and gilded brown, held together by belts made of shining metal plates, polished wood, and yet more beads.</p><p>“I know you— you’re the hack that sells fortunes in that stall in CoCo Town.”</p><p>Obi-Wan Kenobi sputters with great offence, squaring his shoulders and drawing himself up with extreme hauteur.</p><p>“<em> I beg your pardon- </em> I run a perfectly legitimate business, I’ll have you know! I pay taxes (unlike some people I could name in this very building)! And I’m only trying to do my civic duty in preventing a terrible-”</p><p>The two-bit fortune-teller stops, eyes focusing on a point over Fox’s shoulder.</p><p>“They’re walking into a blindspot.”</p><p>“What?” Turning, Fox spots the squad escorting the Senator turning towards a side corridor that is <em> absolutely a blindspot-</em></p><p>“Shit,” he twists neatly on his heel and takes off running, trying to raise the squad on comms and getting nothing- because <em> of course </em> someone is jamming signals- shit! Five minutes before lunch hour and a Core World Senator’s about to get their brains blown out on his watch and he is in so much <em> shit </em>.</p><p><em> Shit, shit, shit </em>— why is Kenobi outpacing him?</p><p>“Hey!” He snaps trying to grab onto the man’s robes but he’s already out of reach and sprinting toward the accursed corridor, a particularly ugly Pre-Reformation era bronze vase that was on display in a transparisteel cabinet on the mezzanine having somehow found its way into his hands.</p><p>Fox rounds the corner just in time to see Kenobi hurl the priceless vase with unerring accuracy— straight at the Senator, knocking him to the ground and possibly giving him a concussion.</p><p>The Commander is so busy internally cursing the man to high heaven as he tries to catch up to the squad that he almost, <em> almost </em>, misses the way that, having knocked the Senator down with a possibly grievous head injury, the bronze vase happens to hover in the exact position that the Senator’s head had been in not a moment before- incidentally absorbing a direct shot from a high-power rifle.</p><p>“Sniper!” Fox yells, instead of the very rude Huttese expletive he wants to call Kenobi.</p><p>The fortune teller still reaches the squad first, seemingly oblivious to the troopers around him returning fire and the corridor being turned into a literal death trap as he kneels beside the Senator and inspects his wound. The wound he inflicted.</p><p>Gritting his teeth as he directs the squad of troopers, he barely spares a glance at Kenobi as he straightens up only far enough to get his feet under him and start dragging the Senator out of the line of fire and back toward the mezzanine.</p><p>The firefight is thankfully short and casualty-free (not counting the Senator), if only because the would-be assassin decides that discretion is the better part of valor and books it before a back-up squad can flank them. It’s only the work of a few minutes to issue orders to chase down the assassin and make his way back towards where Kenobi had taken the Senator.</p><p>A trooper medic is already bent over the unconscious man and is administering first-aid, a private standing guard at his elbow while a crowd of assorted bureaucrats stand about as if they’re watching Corellian street theatre; taking up a lot of space and being extremely useless.</p><p>Kenobi is nowhere to be seen.</p><p>“Where did he go? The man who brought him out?” Fox asks, gesturing to the Senator lying prone on the floor.</p><p>One of the onlookers answers, sounding extremely pleased with themselves for having an explanation.</p><p>“The shaman? He said he would pursue the attacker!” They point to the entrance of the Senate Rotunda, two levels down. The man has disappeared into the crowd but Fox can see the trail of disrupted Senate employees Kenobi has left on his way to the exit like a line of trampled grass and narrows his eyes, coming to a snap decision.</p><p>“Disperse the crowd and lock down the infirmary once the Senator’s been admitted. I’m going after him.” Trusting his troopers to carry out their orders, he doesn’t give them a second glance as he fires up his jetpack and shoots down toward the exit.</p><p>Kenobi has at least a two minute head start on him, but he’s also barrelling through a crowd of self-important sentients who think nothing of stopping in their tracks to complain loudly about <em> how rude! </em> and <em> don’t you know who I am? </em></p><p>So it’s a relatively short flight until he maps the back-alley mystic’s trajectory and touches down into a full speed run at Kenobi’s side.</p><p>“What are you doing?” He asks with full indignation.</p><p>“Commander! How nice of you to join me!” Kenobi laughs with an easy voice, as if he is enjoying afternoon tea with the Senator from Naboo and not mowing down civilians on one of the busiest walkways on Coruscant. “I am in pursuit of our assailant!”</p><p>“You’re going the wrong way for that! Tell me the truth!” Fox commands, struggling to keep up.</p><p>“No, I’m not!” Kenobi laughs again, coming to a stop so suddenly that Fox overshoots him by a few feet and can then only watch as the fool man vaults over the balustrade, straight down into traffic.</p><p>He can’t quite stop himself from yelling in shock as he elbows his own fair share of civilians aside to get to the balustrade so he can lean over the edge, looking for a body.</p><p>There is none.</p><p>But further ahead, a speeder is swerving dangerously— a suspiciously Obi-Wan Kenobi-shaped human hanging off the back.</p><p>“Are you kidding me?” He breathes, slightly winded, as he pushes back from the rail and fires up his jetpack again.</p><p>Navigating Coruscant speeder traffic with only a jetpack is a perilous exercise that Fox is not particularly fond of, but he does catch up in time to grab Kenobi when the man gets punched full in the face and almost tips right out of the passenger seat he had managed to climb into.</p><p>Fox wishes he could be surprised when he looks at the driver and recognises the Gran as the assassin that had shot at the Senator, but he’s really too busy trying to haul himself into the speeder and making sure Kenobi doesn’t fall to his death either.</p><p>“By Order of the Grand Army of the Republic-!” the Gran swerves sharply, throwing Fox forward, and he takes the opportunity to grab at the alien. “Stop-!”</p><p>Another swerve.</p><p>“Fucking stop-!” He makes contact with one of the Gran’s antennae and indiscriminately clenches his fist and pulls, eliciting a pained squeal as the Gran releases the controls and puts his full focus into trying to wrestle out of Fox’s hold.</p><p>Of course, this immediately puts them into freefall.</p><p>“Kenobi!” Fox yells over the dull roar of hundreds of speeders flying past them as they take a nosedive. </p><p>“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” The man shouts back, presumably succeeding in taking control of the speeder because they abruptly level out. The action, while reassuring that they wouldn’t die a fiery death by crashing into Coruscant’s surface, does have the unfortunate side effect of jolting Fox enough that the Gran manages to get an arm around his neck.</p><p>The next few minutes are a blur as the Gran does his concerted best to choke Fox and Fox does his best to not die from asphyxiation or from being violently thrown from the speeder due to Kenobi’s frankly alarming driving skills. He is only half successful on both counts.</p><p>“Pull-” Fox struggles to breathe while trying to work his way out of the Gran’s grip. “Pull over!”</p><p>“What? Oh, yes,” Kenobi agrees, taking a sharp turn that thankfully dislodges the Gran, but also throws Fox clear out of the speeder.</p><p>Dizzy and blinking black spots out of his eyes, he’s not quite quick enough to reorient himself and power up his jetpack before he crash lands on the nearest walkway.</p><p>Fox doesn’t think that he loses consciousness, as such, but by the time blinking awareness comes back to him Kenobi is leaning over him and trying to remove his helmet.</p><p>“Stop,” he grunts, trying to catch Kenobi’s wrist before he touches Fox’s helmet and only missing once.</p><p>“That was a nasty fall, we should check for concussion,” Kenobi says, helping Fox to lever himself up into a sitting position.</p><p>“I’m not concussed,” he insists, standing up despite the protesting aches of his body. “What happened with the Gran?”</p><p>“Oh, he went that way,” Kenobi says, gesturing vaguely behind himself.</p><p>Fox takes a second, recalling the last few minutes. Kenobi had been driving.</p><p>“So why are you here?”</p><p>“Oh, I jumped out after you!” Gods help him.</p><p>“And now we don’t know where he’s gone.”</p><p>“Mhm, yes. I’m afraid he’s escaped us today,” Kenobi confirms, not sounding concerned at all.</p><p>Resisting the urge to throttle the man in front of him, Fox studies their surroundings for a moment before calmly activating his comms and reporting in on their location, the description of the Gran assassin and his speeder, and his likely trajectory. If they have any luck, they’ll be able to track him on traffic cams.</p><p>“I’m thirsty, shall we get something to drink?” Kenobi announces lightly, voice trailing off as he turns away, wandering through the crowd towards a drinks stall.</p><p>Fox blinks slowly and counts back from ten. And then does it again for good measure. <em> The sheer nerve—</em></p><p>“I’m arresting you!” He blurts out, for lack of anything else to say.</p><p>Turning away from the vendor as he disengages his credit chip, Kenobi regards him with a look of extreme offence. </p><p>“What for?!”</p><p>“Assaulting a Senator! Destruction of Senate property!” He lists the reasons as they come to him, stepping forward with a pair of handcuffs. “Reckless driving!”</p><p>“But none of that was my fault!”</p><p>“I beg to differ. Turn around.”</p><p>Kenobi holds up his hands and sputters emphatically. “But my tea-”</p><p>“I don’t care about your tea,” he says flatly, grabbing at the man’s hands before he can start gesticulating more dramatically and twisting them behind his back.</p><p>“But I’ve already paid for it!”</p><p>Resisting the urge to curse in full view of their growing audience, Fox grinds his teeth once and spins the man around to handcuff his hands in front of him.</p><p>“Much obliged,” Kenobi says politely, suddenly a picture of serenity as if someone had flipped a switch.</p><p>“Be quiet. Don’t move,” he orders, keeping one hand on the man’s shoulder and turning away slightly to order a patrol to come pick them up and cursing silently when he’s told it will be at least twenty minutes.</p><p>Casting a look across the onlookers gathered in groups of twos and threes around them, he resists the urge to sigh and only waves a hand, motioning for them to move along. Beside him, he is only peripherally aware of Kenobi tilting sideways slightly to collect his order until the man leans back in too close towards him.</p><p>“What’s that?” He asks, tilting a narrow-eyed glare at the sealed cup Kenobi is shoving into his chest plate.</p><p>“Purple taro bubble tea with sweet jogan jelly— it’s your favourite, isn’t it?” Kenobi responds, smiling genially.</p><p>His eyes narrow even further into slits, not that the other man can see them through Fox’s helmet.</p><p>“I won’t be bribed,” he hisses, snatching the cup out of Kenobi’s hand and feeling no remorse as the other man fumbles to keep hold of his own tea. “I’m taking this in as evidence.”</p><p>“As you like, but it won’t be as good if it goes warm,” Kenobi sighs indifferently, shrugging Fox’s hand off his shoulder to sit at the edge of the walk and out of the way of the heavier foot traffic.</p><p>Fox doesn’t ask how he knew it was his favourite, not particularly looking forward to hearing more of Kenobi’s innaneties as they settle in to wait for the patrol to pick them up.</p><p>Back at headquarters, after securing Kenobi over in lock-up and taking a preliminary report from the squads working on the case, he knows he’ll be skipping any chance at lunch to file all the paperwork generated by an assassination attempt on a Senator and a wild speeder chase through the Federal District. Safe in his quiet office, he slumps at his desk and makes the executive decision to deal with Kenobi tomorrow, when he’s not so bruised from the man’s driving.</p><p>He drinks the damned tea.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you see any errors, let me know 😩</p></blockquote></div></div>
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